Modelling thermal runaway propagation in lithium-ion battery packs

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used in many applications, such as the customer electronics, electrifying transport and energy storage systems. However, despite endeavour and progresses, the number of incidents and recalls related to LIBs are far rising. Abuse operations can result in heat accumulation and consequent thermal reactions inducing failure and thermal runaway (TR), followed by fires and explosions.

The TR of one single cell in a pack can trigger a chain reaction in adjacent cells. As a result, TR propagation will occur in the battery packs. The TR propagation initialising from single cell companied with the reactions chain can activate the TR of entire LIB packs and surroundings, resulting in catastrophic fire and explosion incidents.​

This project aims to develop and validate a predictive tool for TR propagation in LIB packs based on LibFOAM, the single cell TR model developed by the host and the in-house modified FireFOAM.